In a prior blog post, “EEOC Says Sexual Orientation Is Protected Under Title VII!!,” I noted that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission can be sneaky in seeking to expand the scope of the laws it enforces. It will drop bombshells in the middle of otherwise pretty innocuous guidance or resource documents, as if hoping no one notices. The latest example of this is in its just-announced (December 12, 2016) publication on the rights of job applicants and employees with mental health conditions, in which the EEOC oh-so-casually expands the reach of the American with Disabilities Act!
Continue Reading EEOC Expands the ADA!
Reasonable Accommodation
Return of the Beast: Religious Accommodation Redux
Back around Halloween, we offered you a seasonally appropriate and cautionary tale about accommodating an employee’s religious concerns. As we discussed in that blog about the case of EEOC v. Consol Energy, Inc., the employee refused to use a biometric hand scanner because he was afraid it would reveal or imprint the mark of the beast. Because the mark of the beast is supposed to appear on the right hand, the company told him to use his left hand, but the employee believed that using either hand was a problem. The company refused to permit him to record his time manually or to report it to his supervisor, and the employee chose to retire under protest. The EEOC brought suit against the company on his behalf for failure to provide a reasonable accommodation for his religious beliefs and constructive discharge (i.e. the employee was forced to quit), and the employee was awarded over a half-million dollars in damages- a death knell to the employer’s arguments!
Like a zombie, the employer has returned from the grave to ask the court to throw out the judgment on various grounds. The court’s reaction to the employer’s arguments provide some additional lessons for employers generally.
Continue Reading Return of the Beast: Religious Accommodation Redux
Must Employers Accept An Employee’s Stated Disability Without Question?
According to the federal district court in Mendillo v. The Prudential Ins. Co. of America, the answer is “yes.” But I struggle with this decision, because I think it ties an employer’s hands and undercuts the employer’s right to demand medical information under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In this case, a call center employee was pretty seriously injured in a car accident. There were some performance issues that pre-dated her car accident, and they continued after her return to work. About four months later, the employee’s responsibilities were changed so that her off-line work was taken away and she did telephone work full-time. She told her supervisor that the full-time telephone work would exacerbate her back pain, since she was able to get up and stretch when she was doing off-line work. In fact, her back pain did worsen with the full-time telephone work, which caused her doctor to order that she cut back on her hours. In addition, her performance took an immediate and significant turn for the worse. She was able to improve her performance, but it fluctuated over the next year, finally resulting in her termination. She then sued, alleging a number of claims including that the company failed to accommodate her in violation of the ADA.
Continue Reading Must Employers Accept An Employee’s Stated Disability Without Question?
Religious Accommodations – A Beastly Concern
So as Halloween approaches, a recent religious accommodations case involving the “mark of the beast” seemed seasonally appropriate.
For those of you not so familiar with the Bible, the Book of Revelation tells the story of a satanic beast that comes out of the earth and forces all humans to worship another beast coming from the sea. The worshipers are marked on their right hands or their foreheads with the number “666” – i.e. the “mark of the beast.”
Several years ago, a client implemented a biometric timekeeping system, which used a hand scanning procedure. One of the employees objected to using the new system on religious grounds, based on his fear that the system would either imprint or reveal the mark of the beast (it wasn’t terribly clear exactly what the concern was). My partner, Mike McGuire, noted that the mark appears on the right hand, however, and the employee could simply use his left hand on the scanner. Well, that seemed to fix the problem – a pretty simple solution, wasn’t it?
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out so easily for another company – Consol Energy. In that case, an employee who was an Evangelical Christian objected to the biometric scanning system for the same reasons as our client’s employee. Consol actually provided a letter to the employee from the company that made the system, explaining that the Book of Revelation specifies that the mark will appear only on the right hand (or forehead), and therefore the left hand may be used for scanning purposes.Continue Reading Religious Accommodations – A Beastly Concern
EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch: The Epilogue
I’m the type of person who reads the ends of books first (which drives my book club friends crazy). I always want to know how things turn out, which can be a little frustrating in my area of practice. I provide advice and counsel to clients on how to deal with sticky employment situations, but…
The Law v. the Law According to the Media
Last Friday afternoon, I was listening to NPR. I am a loyal NPR listener and have been for many years. Sure, I know it has a liberal bias, but I always thought – in fact, trusted – that it at least got the basic facts right. Thus, I was unbelievably dismayed by a story on…
EEOC Sued For Failing to Accommodate Employee’s Disability
In the vein of “man bites dog,” I particularly enjoyed a recent case in which an employee claims that her employer – the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (?!!!) – failed to accommodate her disability. Yes, the federal agency charged with the enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act – the same agency that broadly interprets…
Accommodating a Teacher’s Fear of Children?
I love these odd cases – like the one-armed man who wanted to be an “unarmed” security guard, about which I blogged previously. Here’s another one that tickled my funny bone – the teacher with pedophobia, which is a debilitating fear of children! (Let’s just absorb the irony of that for a moment, shall…
A New Boss Is Not A Reasonable Accommodation
The bad boss is a cliché. There have been many movies about evil supervisors- for example, “Horrible Bosses” and (because one wasn’t enough) “Horrible Bosses 2.” There are TV shows featuring frustrating or bad bosses – like Michael Scott in “The Office,” or Mr. Burns from “The Simpsons.” There’s even a website where you can…
The EEOC’s (Informal?) Thoughts on Workers’ Comp and the ADA
In perusing the EEOC’s tweets (yes, I do that for all of you), I came across a shout-out for a memo on workers’ compensation and the ADA that was co-written by one of the EEOC’s attorneys, Aaron Konopasky, and an outside medical professional . The memo raised some interesting points regarding the ADA’s coverage of…
